Comments for Practical Ethicshttp://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk
Ethics in the NewsFri, 24 May 2019 15:10:44 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.10Comment on Withdrawing Life Support: Only One Person’s View Matters by Anthony Drinkwaterhttp://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2019/05/withdrawing-life-support-only-one-persons-view-matters/#comment-243035
Fri, 24 May 2019 15:10:44 +0000http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/?p=13955#comment-243035Thank you for this well-argued dose of common ethical sense!
It is fortunate that the rarity of the similar examples that you cite demonstrates that this common sense is almost universal, outwith the vocal few who insist on imposing their own ideologies on others.
]]>Comment on Cross Post: Ten Ethical Flaws in the Caster Semenya Decision on Intersex in Sport by sportyhttp://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2019/05/cross-post-ten-ethical-flaws-in-the-caster-semenya-decision-on-intersex-in-sport/#comment-243004
Wed, 22 May 2019 08:31:41 +0000http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/?p=13936#comment-243004Your point 3 is convincingly argued! But that is only one ethical flaw, not ten.

Here are some problems with the other 9:

“1. It confuses sex with gender … The CAS decision relates to “XY females with disorders of sexual development.” XY denotes the male sex chromosomes. This reverts back to the old biological categories.”

You supply no evidence of confusion. The cited part explicitly states that it applies to *females* who also have certain biological characteristics that advantage them in certain ways.

“Behind this ruling is the view that Semenya is really a man competing in the women’s category.”

What is your evidence for the claim that CAS has that view, rather than the author of the separate article you link to?

“2. It discriminates against some forms of hyperandrogenism. It does not cover a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which can cause elevated levels of testosterone in women with XX chromosomes. The implication is that XX females are real women, while those with XY chromosomes are not.”

That does not follow. The inconsistency you point to can instead be solved by extending the ruling to also apply to congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The ruling can then stick to claims about advantage due to testosterone without making any claims about who is and is not a real woman.

“4. It’s inconsistent with values of sport and human rights … The self-professed values of sport include the development of one’s own talent .”

The values of sport are numerous and sometimes has to be traded off against each other. The current rules already constrain certain ways of developing one’s own talent e.g. doping restrictions, even though some bodies probably are “more talented” in reacting positively to some doping substance or other. But there is strong public support for doping restrictions. In that sense this ruling is consistent with the anti-doping values of sport.

“5. It’s inconsistent with treatment of other athletes Other women with disorders resulting in higher than expected levels of testosterone, such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, are not required to reduce their biological advantage.”

This partly repeats your point 2. See above on that.

In general CAS could solve the inconsistency by implementing general rules on identifiable advantageous outlier genetic conditions in other sports too.

“6. It’s unjust … To change [the rules] now will be undermine her capacity to compete, work and live, after a lifetime of investment.”

What general principle on unfairness in rule changing do you rely on here? Can rules ever be changed? Wouldn’t that always be unfair to *someone*?

“If the rules are to be changed, they should not affect athletes who agreed to the current rules, but future athletes. There should be a “grandmother clause” for current athletes”

Are you suggesting that the Olympics split events into an old-rule version and a new-rule version? So there will be two winners in womens 100 meter and so on for all other sports where rules change?

If you don’t suggest that then your suggestion could be objected to as unfair in another way in that newer athletes won’t be allowed to make use of a genetic advantage while older athletes like Semenya will even though they have to compete against each other in the same event.

Your appeal to fairness can also be objected to in principle. Participation as a top level athlete is an extreme privilege. Making it requires genetics, resources and an abundance of luck. It is unclear why a notion of fairness should at all apply within a situation already bounded by such unfairly distributed factors. Semenya and everyone else should instead simply be grateful for at all having had the real opportunity to participate at the top level at all – a privilege that billions of other humans can only dream of.

“Secondly, justice is about giving priority to the worst off in our society – but this ruling adds disadvantage to the worst off.”

No world class athlete is “the worst off in our society”. Your might try to modify your argument along the lines of Semenya being a symbolic figure and that how she is treated might have negative instrumental impact on other intersex individuals who are among the worst off. But that would take an expanded argument. It would also have to show that other, more direct paths to improving the situation of the worst off aren’t better and/or more efficient.

“But this sends the message: you are really male, we don’t accept you, you should be castrated.”

As already noted above, you are putting words in the mouth of CAS without supporting it with evidence.

“7. It is an inappropriate reaction to fear of a ‘slippery slope’”

You again cite the article by one writer rather than CAS. Unless you can prove that you have infallible mind reading ability you have the duty to support your claims about CAS with actual evidence that readers can assess.

“8. It is disproportionate and unreasonable”

That effect seems less risky than many other formal and practical requirements in top level sports. The level of training that is practically required is itself risky for the long term bodily health of many athletes. The schedule of travel is stressful. The required medical examinations can be stressful and risky. And so on. The new requirement is drop in the ocean in the context of all the other risky burdens a top level athlete already has to shoulder.

“9. It can’t be implemented”

That is a practical obstacle, not a principled objection. The World Medical Association should only stand by their advise *if* good principled objections can be given that all things considered provide reason against the new CAS rule. But your goal here is to try to investigate such principled objections so for you to here appeal to WMA’s opposition is question begging.

“10. There are fairer, safer alternatives … athletes should be able take performance-enhancing substances within the normal physiological range”

This is inconsistent with your own points 8 (medical risks, only in this case millions of athletes would each face that risk rather than perhaps only hundreds under the CAS rule). It also runs into trouble with your own point 6 about fairness after a “lifetime of investment”, since current athletes have trained under doping-forbidden circumstances. You would, per your own stated view of fairness, then have to add a grandfathering mechanism, either by splitting all events into two versions for decades to come, one pro-doping event and one anti-doping event, or, if sticking to one shared event, face the problem of unfairness stated in my objection to point 6 above.

]]>Comment on Shamima Begum and the Public Good by Ianhttp://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2019/05/shamima-begum-and-the-public-good/#comment-242959
Sun, 19 May 2019 12:37:31 +0000http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/?p=13941#comment-242959NR’s statement “Shamima stole her sister’s passport, she may never have been through the process to prove her nationality and remains in UK law a Bangladeshi citizen by dint of her mother being a Bangladeshi citizen (not declared when or if she acquired British citizenship for herself/children). Contains a disparity which may disprove itself.

Was Shamimas sister born of the same parentage she was? If so why did Shamima steal her sister’s passport rather than obtain her own. It would seem rational in the circumstances to assume that the theft was to avoid her parents questions of why she required a passport; potentially leading to the foiling of her juvenile plans. A situation which would go far to ameliorate against many of the other statements made regarding closed communities.

I have a great confusion in my comprehension regarding the statements questioning Shamimas’ citizenship and that only those children born in lawful wedlock under UK regulations may become UK citizens. i.e. This would mean that children conceived as a result of rape in the UK and subsequently born there cannot become UK citizens. An example which patently reveals the error. But even more importantly the UK government has stated it has ‘revoked’ her citizenship, something which cannot happen unless they accept that citizenship exists.

Accepting that the power matrix in british politics has publicly become skewed far to the right in recent years, and this revocation of citizenship is in line with the predominantly espoused ideology, rejecting the work of many generations directed at ensuring that all people ‘belong’ (a wrong word, but appropriate in the context of this discussion) and therefore have a social grouping at the nation state level who will support, or speak up for them; The then inevitable exertions of power as a means of achieving or protecting dominance over any smaller social goup continue to erode the broader/wider moral/ethical base within those nation states which move in those directions. The older more understanding dominance without hegemony which spilled out of the raj and days of empire in the UK may today clearly be seen to be a thing of the past, as reflecting back what is received is singularly perceived as an exertion of power in itself rather than understood for the questions it may pose. To ‘belong’ to any social group does not mean one fully agrees with all its values or will maintain them all the time! Unfortunately many young people feel that very thing with great fervor, until and if they gain a better understanding. Would that comment fit Shamima and many others? If so then British politics and society has failed its members in capital letters and gone on to resorted to methods of suppression and domination as a means of achieving security, in the same way that many other social groups (which includes religions) attempt to.

]]>Comment on Shamima Begum and the Public Good by N igel Robertshttp://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2019/05/shamima-begum-and-the-public-good/#comment-242948
Sat, 18 May 2019 06:09:47 +0000http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/?p=13941#comment-242948Rot. She joined the forces of a self-declared state whose role was to declare war on western values and people. Her parents and her closed Moslem community framed her views not the UK. They should be responsible.

Internet fora and ISPs can be centred anywhere. The person’s sharing the fora and responsible for content and parents for controlling use and access.

Teachers are not responsible for life outside the school, unless they are encouraging, providing or facilitating such.

Shamima may be UK born but may never have been entitled to UK citizenship. Proofs of parents’ nationality and status have not been shared.

Her parents are from Bangladesh and her father lives there most of the time. He apparently fathered her whilst commuting between his UK-based family and Bangladesh, where he lives with another wife. He states he is a retired tailor at 60, and from 1990s prior to her birth he had dual or multiple households and families. He, thereby, did not and does not support the western morality and values, but those of his religion and culture. As Shamima was born in the UK to a mother sharing her “husband” with at least one other “wife”, it is likely that her parents have a Sharia marriage and both reject western values. In consequence, the UK, in its value of personal freedom, allowed the persistence of non-western values in the Moslem communities of Tower Hamlets, which can be considered self-ruled communities transplanted mainly from one region of the sub-continent. UK influence on Shamima is limited to state schooling, as she is from a closed community. Her religious teaching and influences was from her family and immigrant community and the internet fora she visited, which are/were probably not UK-based.

UK born, but not affiliated to UK. She would only, at the time of her birth, be granted British nationality if her mother had indefinite leave to remain and complied with continuous residence requirements, or had become a naturalised British citizen. Her parents were probably not legally married (Sharia marriage not legal in UK), so British nationality depends on mother’s status.
We have not been told how her mother earns/ed a living, after her father “returned to Bangladesh in 1990s to take another wife”.
Have they (both parents) been supported by the state benefits for life. Has the father messed up his retirement funds as a result of his public profile and residencies becoming known to the UK services?

The naming conventions of the Bangladeshi Moslem communities are such that it is impossible to trace family connections and registry records – many women use the title Begum as a surname as men use Miah and a child can be registered with any name not reflecting parentage. If there is no standard surname, as in UK convention, it is impossible for a Registrar to know if the residential status of the parent/s affords British nationality to the child. Thus a child is included in UK register, but may not be a British citizen, but believes themself to be. A more thorough investigation into nationality occurs only when a passport is requested – not for benefit claims or access to public services. As Shamima stole her sister’s passport, she may never have been through the process to prove her nationality and remains in UK law a Bangladeshi citizen by dint of her mother being a Bangladeshi citizen (not declared when or if she acquired British citizenship for herself/children). Shamima is Bangladeshi until or unless she has proved that at the time of her birth, her mother had indefinite leave to remain in the UK, and had been resident in the UK continuously for the periods required to enable Shamima to acquire British citizenship by birth. (Laws changed in 2002 to enable an unmarried British father to pass nationality to his child.) Even if her parents were legally married in the UK, by her father’s declaration that he shared his time between the UK and Bangladesh since 1990s, unless he was a British citizen at the time of her birth, he could not pass the continuous residency requirements criteria for his daughter to acquire British citizenship by being born in the UK.

Being born in a stable dies not make you a donkey.

]]>Comment on Caster Semenya, What’s Next? by Whitfordhttp://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2019/05/caster-semenya-whats-next/#comment-242924
Thu, 16 May 2019 17:05:56 +0000http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/?p=13932#comment-242924This is really interesting and a good read. One thing I’m not sure about though is really what it means to be male in terms of “perceived identity”. What precisely is it that they are perceiving? It isn’t their biological sex (either of the first two definitions), since by hypothesis this can differ to their perceived identity. So what is it?

I can think of a few possibilities. Perhaps there are various attributes typically associated with men (e.g. liking football and beer) and they have many of those attributes. But then it seems like the word ‘male’ is inappropriate – the person is just ‘masculine’. So perhaps instead the perception is “I ought to have male sex organs”. It’s not clear then what the ‘ought’ really is doing – presumably the person hasn’t been wronged by anyone in being born without male sex organs, so perhaps it’s more like “the world would be better if I had male sex organs”. But that doesn’t seem to constitute gender either – maybe the world would be better if you were young again, but that doesn’t actually make you young. An adjacent option is to cast it as desire: “I wish I had male sex organs”. But again it seems like this doesn’t define gender anymore than wishing to be young again actually makes you young.

So I am left perplexed, but feeling like I’m missing something obvious. I am very grateful for any pointers.

]]>Comment on Caster Semenya, What’s Next? by Santiago Ojedahttp://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2019/05/caster-semenya-whats-next/#comment-242923
Thu, 16 May 2019 16:07:32 +0000http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/?p=13932#comment-242923Sigh, it is hard to avoid the impression that people espousing the view presented in this article have not competed very much themselves, in any sport… women are on average 10-12% less “able to express the kind of features that make someone excel in almost all competitive sports”? Nice, they also tend to concentrate more around average values (the standard deviation of female distributions of most polygenic characters tend to be lower than males’), which means that if you force (let?) them compete with males, in almost any sport, the 100 first competitors are going to be male, both at world, country and regional levels. Not very inspiring for women. But again, maybe somebody that doesn’t regularly compete doesn’t assign much value to seeing on the top of the podium somebody you can identify with (and which you may dream of replacing some day), something he would be denying to half the population (the female half) if his idea of abolishing what he terms “gender discrimantion” were enacted.

Indeed, the author strangely forgets to mention that in sports that have different categories for different body weights, as boxing, weightlifting, judo, powerlifting, wrestling, etc. there are still separate categories for men and women. You cannot expect a 105 pounds weighlifter to lift more than a 200 pounds one… any more than you can expect a 105 pound female weightlifter lift more than a 105 pounds male one. It smply will never happen. You may try to disguise it as much as you can, the moment you eliminate separate female categories you effectively send all the women competitors to their homes, as they would be relegated to the last positions in sports requiring strength, speed, power production, mass or heigth (which, again, constitute 99% of sports).

To top off a very misinformed article, the author resurrects the old canard of “it is not clear that testosterone gives you any advantage”. I have read the referenced study, and find it difficult tounderstand how such obfuscation did pass back in the day the quality filters to be assumed in a peer reviewed journal. Just take a trip to any neighborhood gym (or check what the WADA is finding in any doped athlete) to see to what extent the most knowledgeable coaches and practitioners buy it. It is not, for sure, estrogens what they may consider injecting, but testosterone (with a smattering of growth hormone). And the reason is not that hard to fathom: testosterone allows you to develop bigger and stronger muscles, and those muscles make you more powerfil (able to move more weight in less time). In 99% of sports the more powerful athlete has an almost insurmountable advantage over the competition. Exactly like the one Miss Semenya has over her female competitors.

So even if it is not Caster Semenya’s fault to have been cursed (blessed?) by nature with a physiological advantage that makes her (because she has chosen to present herself as a woman, as she is of course in her full right to do, although given her genetic makeup it may be more descriptively correct to refer to her as a “him”) unbeatable in the women’s category, the CAS made the right decision banning her from competing in women’s sport. If she loves competing, she can do so against men (that would be, by the way, the same result if the author’s preferred solution were implemented).

All I can agree with the author is, given the potentially deleterious effects on her health of taking medication to reduce her abnormally (for a woman) T-levels, I think that optoin should be banned. Not just for reasons having to do with the athlete’s health (if it is potentially bad, and thus banned, to resort to external testosterone increases, it seems equally bad to resort to external testosterone decreases). Also, from a fairness perspective, Ms. semenya could spend the whole year training with no medication, having her baseline T-levels at a much higher concentration than her opponents, building more muscle and more cardiovascular capacity, which would still serve her in competition time, even if during the race she had managed to reduce her T-levels to the desired figure.

]]>Comment on Caster Semenya, What’s Next? by Larry Siegelhttp://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2019/05/caster-semenya-whats-next/#comment-242919
Thu, 16 May 2019 08:43:05 +0000http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/?p=13932#comment-242919I have done exactly that. My high school had an intramural basketball team for boys under 5’10”.
]]>Comment on Cross Post: Ten Ethical Flaws in the Caster Semenya Decision on Intersex in Sport by Jim Birchhttp://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2019/05/cross-post-ten-ethical-flaws-in-the-caster-semenya-decision-on-intersex-in-sport/#comment-242916
Thu, 16 May 2019 03:25:51 +0000http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/?p=13936#comment-242916You are proposing a situation where all women must dope to be competitive. Testosterone confers a clear advantage in sport. That is not a gender thing, it’s basic biochemistry. Doping may be ok with you but that’s a personal preference. It simply isn’t ok with large chunk of the competitors, sponsors, and the public.

Presuming that discrimination is always wrong and and must be avoided at any cost can lead to crazy arguments and worse outcomes. It’s a preference not an absolute requirement and outcomes need to be weighed up. Is it preferable to force the a large number of women to choose between dropping out, being put at a disadvantage, or doping up on testosterone or to exclude a few competitors? That’s the question I would ask. And I’m sure that there would be a massive backlash against the few sexual ambiguous competitors if your proposal was used.

]]>Comment on Caster Semenya, What’s Next? by Moreno Klaushttp://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2019/05/caster-semenya-whats-next/#comment-242912
Wed, 15 May 2019 22:04:29 +0000http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/?p=13932#comment-242912This a complex issue and speaking without being an expert can result in saying silly things (I am also not an expert). However, I don’t understand what the author means when stating that the CAS decision is stupid and the conclusion. The reasons for sex-based discrimination for most sports should be obvious to anyone there is nothing “shameless” about it. A “10-12%” difference in performance in professional sport is a massive gap that justifies sports being categorized by gender. We are not talking in ” football terms” of a “4-0” difference but about a “20-0” difference, something which the author of this post does not seem to quite understand. Why should this be put into question because of a group of women which comprises maybe 0.01% of total population? Caster Semenya should not be allowed to compete, I am very sorry for her, but it seems like a fair decision. The proposed solution analogous to boxing categories seems silly to me and it would create even more problems (ie, more opportunities for cheating).
]]>Comment on Caster Semenya, What’s Next? by John Thackerhttp://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2019/05/caster-semenya-whats-next/#comment-242907
Wed, 15 May 2019 15:02:46 +0000http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/?p=13932#comment-242907“The theory of science teaches us that a fruitful classification must serve an important purpose. In addition to this, the classes used should be mutually exclusive and exhaustive. Every classified individual should belong to one class only and everyone should belong to some class.”

No, it doesn’t. There are plenty of fruitful classifications that are not mutually exclusive nor exhaustive. Such a theory would contradict any reasonable study of evolution, presenting difficulty in speciation. Whether based on morphology, phylogenetics, behavior, or evolutionary niche, there are boundary cases that pose problems for any concept of species in biology. Ideally, a classification should approach being mutually exclusive and exhaustive, but no classification in practice meets this.

Now, in the case of human self-identification works for most people when identifying traits in a way that does not work for other species– and yet there too there are individuals who for whatever reason are not able to clearly articulate their self-identification (whether of gender, ethnicity, or what have you).

That the premise is flawed does not vitiate the argument that all sports should adopt the sort of weight class segregation seen in sports like boxing and wrestling, though.